I learned to Write as a freshman in college. Like nearly every student in the States, I wrote for years beginning with from learning the basics such as letters and small words to placing these characters into coherent statements. I learned grammar, and I learned punctuation. I know where to put a period and a comma (most of the time). I can write a research paper and a five paragraph essay with ease. Despite all of this, I learned to Write in my freshman year of college.
I personally distinguish writing from Writing. Although I made this distinction recently, the process of Writing began as I sat in my Composition 101 class and was asked a very simple question-- what is writing. Immediately I raised my hand eager to answer, and as soon as I was called on, I realized I had no idea. This not only disturbed me, but it made me wonder what exactly I had been doing for all of that time before college. I wrote papers and poems, yes, but was I really Writing, or was I completing an assignment.
Like most people, I wrote little outside of the prompt of a professor. I didn't really have the desire to write either. Within the parameters of a syllabus and a rubric, I found myself finding information and recalling it for a grade. I noticed that it was the same generic five-paragraph essays with the introduction, the thesis, three supporting paragraphs, and a conclusion. There was no development. There was no critical thinking.
From the first day of my college writing course, I noticed a difference in my thinking towards Writing. The difference was that I actually had to think! There wasn't much in-depth reading and thought when I had to prepare for papers in my K-12 education, but from the Composition class, we were reading arguments and discussing them. We built teams and debated against each other, supported our ideas with facts and evidence, and really captured what it meant to think. But the lesson I learned that day is that we captured what it meant to Write.
I recall reading the arguments provided on abortion. In the media there was a solid line in the debates-- Pro-Choice vs. Pro-Life. Although I began to consider myself more of a freethinker at this point, I still had a heavy religious influence in my background. In spite of my “sound” teaching, I began to really analyze the arguments presented to me. If I were in the place of a young teenager, a poor mother, or a woman who was violated, what would I do? Although I could never actually be in their place, nor would I try, this opened me up to new perspectives. There was no longer the excuse of my upbringing. This was not a moment where I could remain ignorant. This was my learning process. This was critical thinking.
The time spent in class that day changed my perspective on Writing for my future. I no longer just wrote because I was prompted. I no longer wrote for my teacher or my peers, but for understanding and thought. I wanted my words to make a difference, or even to provoke one’s own transformation in writing as those readings did for me.
As my college years continued, I encountered, yet again, a moment where my writing was changed. I entered my political science course with about the same expectations as I did the first time I took the course (I had to take the course a second time to get a higher grade)-- let me learn and let me leave. From the opening words of the course, I knew that this professor was very different from my original one. He spoke with high expectations and clarity, so as to assure us that we will learn.
My most memorable moment in this class was one not in the classroom, but sitting in my professor’s office. We were discussing a few of the questions I had about a paper we were writing in the course. The paper had been an informative essay of about seven or eight pages in length. The topics were left for each student to decide, but each topic had to have positive arguments and negative arguments for each side. We could not have significantly more pros or cons for either side, but support each side as equally as possible. This was something that was different for me. Unlike my Composition 101 course where I was given the topic and the arguments and had to pick out specific arguments, this political science paper forced me to consider all sides with little evidence of leaning towards one or the other. My audience was not someone who was settled to one side, but someone who may have been on the fence.
